Sunday, October 08, 2006

Q48 A3: Whether evil is in good as in its subject?

Yes. The subject of evil is good because the subject of privation and of form is one and the same: viz., being in potentiality (whether it be being in absolute potentiality, as primary matter, which is the subject of the substantial form, and of privation of the opposite form; or whether it be being in relative potentiality, and absolute actuality).

Evil imports the absence of good. But not every absence of good is evil. For absence of good can be taken in a privative and in a negative sense.

Absence of good, taken negatively, is not evil; otherwise, it would follow that what does not exist is evil, and also that everything would be evil, through not having the good belonging to something else; for instance, a man would be evil who had not the swiftness of the roe, or the strength of a lion.

But the absence of good, taken in a privative sense, is an evil; as, for instance, the privation of sight is called blindness.

The form which makes a thing actual is a perfection and a good; and thus every actual being is a good; and likewise every potential being, as such, is a good, as having a relation to good. For as it has being in potentiality, so has it goodness in potentiality.

Evil is not in existing things as a part, or as a natural property of any existing thing.

Evil is not in the good opposed to it as in its subject, but in some other good, for the subject of blindness is not "sight," but "animal."

Hence one good can coexist with the privation of another good.